Fire
by SafireGriffon
Summary: Sanzocentric oneshot. Rated for angst and language. What is it that keeps Sanzo going on the journey West?


A/N: Super-duper huge hug for Befanini, who beta'd this. Grazie, cara mia!

Disclaimer: Me? Own Saiyuki? Ha! In my dreams . . .

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There are times when I'm just sick of everything. Sick of every fucking thing. Times I wonder why the hell I'm still here—why this hellhole of a world hasn't just killed me yet. Times I want to just scream at it to come out and get me already what the hell are you waiting for!? The rest of them know that it happens on the rainy nights, but it happens other times. I'm not a fucking robot; there's no fucking on/off switch. Just because the sun's out, doesn't mean that everything's great, and that Sanzo just loves his life because there's no rain. If that was all it took, I'd have left Chang'an and moved to the middle of the Gobi desert. But just because there's no mud on the ground doesn't mean that the Smith N Wesson doesn't feel damn good in my hand. Just because my hair's dry and blowing in a hot wind doesn't mean I'm not mentally counting bullets. How many of you motherfuckers can I shoot? How many of you can I kill, and still leave one for me? I laugh sometimes, that laugh that makes the monkey so mad because it scares him a little and he thinks _Maybe Sanzo's not alright_. If there's ever a day when I only have one bullet, this stupid journey West might just be in trouble. Nobody would care about the Hakkai-ikkou (there's no way Gojyo or Goku could lead. And Hakkai can't break; he's already broken). 

But I'm not only alive because of a stupid number game. I'm not alive just because there's always just the right amount of demons there. Never 4, never 9, always enough to leave 4 bullets, or 3, or 2 or none. And any of you who want to blame the stupid monkey can just forget it. I'm going to die sometime, and if he's stupid enough to go ape-shit because of it, well, I just don't see how that's my problem.

I don't live for anybody. Muichimotsu. Free of everything, bound by nothing. Free of everything. Free of anything that would hold me to this world. Free of anything that would hold me from it.

_I wonder, who decided that birds were free?_

Muichimotsu. Muichimotsu. Muichimotsu.

Sometimes, when I can be alone for just _one goddamn minute_ I sit with the gun in my hand and rub it back and forth across my forehead. Just feel the cold metal sliding back and forth across my skin and knowing the whole time I won't pull that trigger. And then I laugh and think _Shit, what if I did?_ What if one of them walks in and sees it? What if when they shout it startles me into pulling the trigger? No; splattered brains would definitely make the monkey go crazy. And then Hakkai and Gojyo would find me in hell, the stupid bastards.

I don't live for anybody, and I don't die for anybody. Muichimotsu. And I'm not out to save the world, no matter what the Three Aspects say. I just want to get back what's mine. My master's sutra is in somebody else's filthy hands and what they're using it for doesn't matter so much as the fact that it's _my_ property they're using. And that stupid promise I made. Stupid kid that I was, thought I could take on the world. Knew, _knew_ how cruel and uncaring the world was, and still thought I could take it on. And I promised to get my master's sutra back before I used that perfectly sized gun to do what I've wanted to do since the moments after they killed him and I realized what all the red on my hands meant.

I look at it, now, on the pretense of reloading it. I hadn't after the last youkai attack; don't want to be unprepared next time. That could get you killed. I smile inside my head, because if I smiled out here, Hakkai would see and caring hypocrite that he is wouldn't leave me alone until I told him why I had. It's still the perfect size. That doesn't make any sense—my hands are nowhere near the same size they were when I picked it out of all the weapons in that shed. But it still fits in my hand perfectly. I put it back in my sleeve; I'm not dying today.

People say that I'm icy. The stupid cockroach has called me an "ice princess" more than once (and got a bullet flying past his head for it). I wish I was. Then there'd be no stupid journey West, and I wouldn't care, and I could just die. How many of them could I shoot, and still leave one for me?

But it's not icy and cold, inside or out. It burns. It burns way too hot and when I was a kid I just thought it must be turning all my guts into a smoldering heap because all of it, whatever was boiling in there, was just so hot and twisted up that I just felt sick all the time. Now I just forget about it. Whenever I feel that hatred or that pain or _This is so stupid_ burning in my gut I just forget about it, because I figure everything in there is all ash and tar, because everything that could have burned out did already.

It's the fire that keeps me from dying. It burns too hot to let me go because damn Muichimotsu I won't be bound to anyone and I won't be bound to fate but there are things I have to do before the fire will bank itself down to embers and then to nothing. Nothing. Because everything that could have burned out already did. I just have one question. How many of you motherfuckers can I kill before the fire goes out?

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"Fire is never a gentle master." Anonymous

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A/N: Now that you've read . . .review and tell me what you thought! 


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